Physics for the Next Generation: The Patterns Approach

July 29–August 1, 2019

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

By using the ideas described in Next Generation Science Standards, this course prepares teachers to guide their students to make predictions, plan and conduct experiments, collect data, engage in data-centered discussion and enable analysis of the results and argument from evidence. Participants in the workshop will engage in the practices of science and engineering throughout the four days, starting with the anchoring experiments that contextualize the four common patterns in physics: horizontal line, linear, quadratic, and inverse. Teachers then engage in and learn to teach two project-based engineering units that serve to spiral the anchoring patterns with new physics concepts, developing conceptual, graphical, and symbolic understanding. The course includes three follow-up sessions that are designed to support teachers during the school year as they make instructional shifts.